Software Toolbox Technical Blog

It's pretty common these days for companies to use Microsoft Teams™ for internal communications within and between departments and maybe even between IT and OT segments in an organization. This has become more and more important with increasing remote office scenarios, enabling vital collaboration between key members of an organization.

But what if you could also have real-time updates from your process and other systems in the same fashion? Rather than a colleague messaging you about an urgent matter, what if your actual processes and even business systems could message you via Teams with actionable information (possibly a line is down, or a tank level is approaching maximum level)?

In this blog post, we'll cover the steps necessary to use OPC Router to integrate your variety of systems with Teams so that you can have real-time updates and make important decisions about your business more quickly.

OPC Router includes a wide range of features that you may already be taking advantage of. The product is regularly updated to add additional useful features and tools, and to resolve any known issues, as part of its continuous improvement process.

In this post, I will cover new features and enhancements available in OPC Router V4.28 including:

• New MQTT Sparkplug A & B Plug-in 
• MQTT V5 support
• Support for Oracle Cloud Databases & Wago IoT Cloud 
• Expanded Database and Variable Triggers

AVEVA™ users have a range of native connectivity options for interfacing with different systems. OPC Router also supports connectivity to variety of different systems that users sometimes need to access from AVEVA System Platform. Users of AVEVA System Platform can leverage OI Gateway to easily and securely connect to OPC Router via OPC UA for connections to many other data sources.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to connect AVEVA System Platform to OPC Router via OPC UA, enabling additional connectivity options for AVEVA users to systems such as SAP (and other ERPs), a variety of relational and other databases, conversion of file data including CSV, XML, JSON and others, IIoT systems including REST and SOAP web services and MQTT brokers and more.

If you have been following our blog for a while or have been exploring IoT platforms available in the market, you may know that the Google Cloud Platform combined with the Google IoT Core is a frequently used combination in the industry. Google has recently announced that it will be shutting down the Google IoT Core. In doing so, Google is forcing many of its Cloud Platform users to switch platforms.

In this blog post, we will review detailed information about the alternatives to the Google Cloud Platform that are available for use with all of the IoT capable products we provide, and how the change works.

It's important for any enterprise to have actionable data in the timeliest fashion for making decisions. Minimizing downtime and increasing performance are important to the profitability of any company and knowledge at the point of action is key.

To that end, automating notifications or reports based on the latest process data from your various systems can ensure you're never in the dark when it comes to your processes.

In this post, I will cover step-by-step how to easily automate email notifications and reports for OPC and data sources with the OPC Router for giving you and other decision makers the knowledge you need to make informed decision as quickly as possible.

OPC Router provides connectivity to a wide range of data sources including ERP systems such as SAP, a variety of relational and other databases, conversion of file data including CSV, XML, JSON and others, IIoT systems including REST and SOAP web services and MQTT brokers and more. It's often necessary for OPC UA client applications (such as HMIs, SCADAs and other software clients) to need access to such data sources. OPC Router also supports acting as an OPC UA server.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to map such non-OPC UA data sources supported by OPC Router to OPC UA nodes/items for access by external OPC UA clients.

Many AVEVA™ users are probably already aware of the native connectivity options they have for interfacing with different systems. Many AVEVA users have also turned to TOP Server over the years, both for standardizing device connectivity in a single server and for drivers/protocols not available as native AVEVA options.

Those users of AVEVA System Platform have traditionally connected to TOP Server directly via either its native SuiteLink interface or OPC DA Classic. AVEVA's OI Gateway provides those users the additional option of connecting to OPC UA data sources, for easier and more secure remote connections to such data sources.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to connect AVEVA System Platform to TOP Server via OPC UA, expanding device connectivity options for AVEVA users.

AVEVA™ users already have a wide range of connectivity options for interfacing with different systems. For many years, OmniServer has been expanding that connectivity to include non-standard, non-PLC type devices that don't have an existing off-the-shelf communications driver. Users of AVEVA System Platform have traditionally connected to OmniServer via either the native SuiteLink interface or OPC DA Classic. AVEVA's OI Gateway provides those users the additional option of connecting to OPC UA data sources, for easier and more secure remote connections to such data sources.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to connect AVEVA System Platform to OmniServer via OPC UA, expanding non-standard device connectivity options for AVEVA users.